After we had finished breakfast he came and squatted down before me.
Having lit his pipe he asked suddenly:
"Would the Baases like to walk through that cave to-night? If so, there will be no trouble.""What do you mean?" I asked, suspecting that he was still drunk.
"I mean, Baas, that the Dweller-in-the-cave is fast asleep.""How do you know that, Hans?"
"Because I am the nurse who put him to sleep, Baas, though he kicked and cried a great deal. He is asleep; he will wake no more. Baas, Ihave killed the Father of Serpents."
"Hans," I said, "now I am sure that you are still drunk, although you do not show it outside.""Hans," added Ragnall, to whom I had translated as much of this as he did not understand, "it is too early in the day to tell good stories.
How could you possibly have killed that serpent without a gun--for you took none with you--or with it either for that matter?""Will the Baases come and take a walk through the cave?" asked Hans with a snigger.
"Not till I am quite sure that you are sober," I replied; then, remembering certain other events in this worthy's career, added;"Hans, if you do not tell us the story at once I will beat you.""There isn't much story, Baas," replied Hans between long sucks at his pipe, which had nearly gone out, "because the thing was so easy. The Baas is very clever and so is the Lord Baas, why then can they never see the stones that lie under their noses? It is because their eyes are always fixed upon the mountains between this world and the next.
But the poor Hottentot, who looks at the ground to be sure that he does not stumble, ah! he sees the stones. Now, Baas, did you not hear that man in a night shirt with his head shaved say that those goats were food for One who dwelt in the mountain?""I did. What of it, Hans?"
"Who would be the One who dwelt in the mountain except the Father of Snakes in the cave, Baas? Ah, now for the first time you see the stone that lay at your feet all the while. And, Baas, did not the bald man add that this One in the mountain was only fed at new and full moon, and is not to-morrow the day of new moon, and therefore would he not be very hungry on the day before new moon, that is, last night?""No doubt, Hans; but how can you kill a snake by feeding it?""Oh! Baas, you may eat things that make you ill, and so can a snake.
Now you will guess the rest, so I had better go to wash the dishes.""Whether I guess or do not guess," I replied sagely, the latter being the right hypothesis, "the dishes can wait, Hans, since the Lord there has not guessed; so continue.""Very well, Baas. In one of those boxes are some pounds of stuff which, when mixed with water, is used for preserving skins and skulls.""You mean the arsenic crystals," I said with a flash of inspiration.
"I don't know what you call them, Baas. At first I thought they were hard sugar and stole some once, when the real sugar was left behind, to put into the coffee--without telling the Baas, because it was my fault that the sugar was left behind.""Great Heavens!" I ejaculated, "then why aren't we all dead?""Because at the last moment, Baas, I thought I would make sure, so Iput some of the hard sugar into hot milk and, when it had melted, Igave it to that yellow dog which once bit me in the leg, the one that came from Beza-Town, Baas, that I told you had run away. He was a very greedy dog, Baas, and drank up the milk at once. Then he gave a howl, twisted about, foamed at the mouth and died and I buried him at once.
After that I threw some more of the large sugar mixed with mealies to the fowls that we brought with us for cooking. Two cocks and a hen swallowed them by mistake for the corn. Presently they fell on their backs, kicked a little and died. Some of the Mazitu, who were great thieves, stole those dead fowls, Baas. After this, Baas, I thought it best not to use that sugar in the coffee, and later on Bena told me that it was deadly poison. Well, Baas, it came into my mind that if Icould make that great snake swallow enough of this poison, he, too, might die.
"So I stole your keys, as I often do, Baas, when I want anything, because you leave them lying about everywhere, and to deceive you first opened one of the boxes that are full of square-face and brandy and left it open, for I wished you to think that I had just gone to get drunk like anybody else. Then I opened another box and got out two one-pound tins of the sugar which kills dogs and fowls. Half a pound of it I melted in boiling water with some real sugar to make the stuff sweet, and put it into a bottle. The rest I tied with string in twelve little packets in the soft paper which is in one of the boxes, and put them in my pocket. Then I went up the hill, Baas, to the place where Isaw those goats are kraaled at night behind a reed fence. As I had hoped, no one was watching them because there are no tigers so near this town, and man does not steal the goats that are sacred. I went into the kraal and found a fat young ewe which had a kid. I dragged it out and, taking it behind some stones, I made its leg fast with a bit of cord and poured this stuff out of the bottle all over its skin, rubbing it in well. Then I tied the twelve packets of hard poison-sugar everywhere about its body, ****** them very fast deep in the long hair so that they could not tumble or rub off.
